Strange as it may sound for a sport that’s all
about being the fastest, the art of slowing a
Formula One car down can be far more crucial
to setting purple sectors than outright speed.
It is, after all, this ability to hit the brakes at just
the right time that determines if a driver locks
up, gets the corner right – just kissing the apex
before getting onto the power – or overshoots
it. Getting it right can often give the driver just
enough over rivals to pip them to pole while
getting it wrong can cost precious seconds in a
sport known for its fine margins.
It’s always fascinating to watch a Formula One
car braking when you’re trackside at the end of a
long straight. One moment the cars are hurtling
towards a tight hairpin at over 300 kilometres per
hour while the next instant and in the space of
about 80 meters – hard on the brakes with brake
discs glowing – they’ve shed most of that speed,
turning into the corner at a more sedate 100kph.
Such dramatic deceleration exposes the driver
to extreme forces and requires tremendous effort
on his part.
“Brake pressure is generated by the force
of the driver,” F1 brake supplier Brembo’s
Mauro Piccoli explained in the Sepang paddock.
“Consider that on a normal brake application this
guy can apply 120 to 160 kilogrammes on the
pedal.”
Formula One drivers are superhumanly fit, but
the thought that the force the driver has to apply
on the pedal is equivalent to lifting over 100 kilos
with one leg eight or nine times a lap – lap after
lap – for around 100 minutes at a time boggles
the mind. Think of trying that in the gym and
you’ll get the idea.
And it’s not just about the amount of force
required to slow the car down. There’s an art to
applying that force: it’s not just hit the brakes as
late as possible and turn the wheel.
“For sure it's not an on-off system,” two-time
Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso
explained. “You need to go maximum power
in the beginning and then feel how much you
need, because sometimes there is a lot more
grip than expected and you need to decide in five
milliseconds that you need to slow the brakes a
little bit.
“The first kick is very important,” Alonso
continued. “Due to the aerodynamic performance
of the car at that moment when you're at 300kph,
you can apply maximum effort on the brake and
you have the performance. But then when you
approach the corner – and especially when you
start the turn in – if you apply all the effort you
will lock all the tyres so you need to back off a
little bit on the brakes and modulate them.”
There are also other considerations a driver has
to take into account: the grip offered by a track
surface that’s always changing, the direction of
the wind, the changing fuel load, KERS (which
uses the heat generated under braking to provide
an addition 80bhp at the push of a button) and,
key to the current era of Formula One, tyre
degradation.
As a result, drivers can be seen fiddling
with the brake balance, or the distribution of
braking power between the front and rear axles,
adjusting it several times over the course of a lap.
“When it’s headwind [going into] some corners
you can be a little bit more rear wards on the
brake bias and you can have a little bit more
performance on the brakes,” Alonso explained.
“When it's tailwind, one straight or something,
you tend to lock the rear end so you move the
brake balance for ward a little bit to calm down
the car under braking. So there are always areas
where you need to be very flexible. There is not a
perfect brake balance strategy that the engineers
tell you.”
Formula One ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone has
revealed to The Daily Telegraph that banker
Gerhard Gribkowsky’s attempt to blackmail him
centered on the French Paul Ricard circuit owned
by Bambino, the Eccclestone family trust.
The Bambino trust was created after Ecclestone
was advised to transfer his shares in Formula One
rights holder FOCA Administration to his Czech
ex-wife Slavica as she would have had to pay tax on
money inherited from him in the event of his death,
as she wasn’t domiciled in the UK.
Under UK law, Ecclestone could not have been
seen to have any control over the trust, as if he did,
the fund would be eligible for taxes that Ecclestone
feared could run to the hundreds of millions, if not
billions.
But Ecclestone helped co-ordinate renovation
work carried out at Paul Ricard, and it was on this
point that Gribkowsky’s blackmail threat was based,
according to the Telegraph.
“I helped the people that own the circuit in Ricard;
it belongs to the trust,” Ecclestone told the British
newspaper. “I helped them and told them the sort
of hospital they should build and even the sort of car
run-off areas they should build. Gribkowsky said I ran
the trust and [the advice I gave to the French circuit]
is one example [of that].”
Last year, Gribkowsky was sentenced by the
German courts to a eight-and-a -half year prison term
for receiving $44 million from Ecclestone in return for
arranging the sale of a stake in Formula One’s holding
company to private equity firm CVC Capital.
Ecclestone, who was called as a witness to the
trial, denied any wrongdoing but admitted to being
“shaken down” by Gribkowsky after the German
banker threatened to bring about what the F1 boss
felt was an undeserved investigation into his family’s
financial affairs.
“I tell you what Gribkowsky should have been
locked up for. He shook me down and put me in a
position that I believed perhaps he was going to do
what he was saying he could do, even if he couldn’t,”
Ecclestone told The Daily Telegraph. “So, for sure he
should have been punished for that.”
F1 >>> NEWS
Brake if you want to go faster:
the art of braking in Formula One
Gribkowsky threat
centered on Paul
Ricard renovation
- Ecclestone
11
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